Philippine Android Market Purchases Now Enabled!

Current and future Android users in the Philippines rejoice! Buying apps from the Android Market here in the Philippines has been enabled! You can finally buy apps, games, and other utilities with your hard earned Manuel Quezons. This should allow for more options and methods of entertainment for Android-loving Filipinos.

Before, the Android Market only allowed free Applications to be bought from the Android Marketplace with our devices and the Web Market. The Web Market would show paid apps, but would not allow you to buy these apps on your local device. With these developments, the Android Market is now one of the first few smartphone app marketplaces that allow for purchasing of paid apps here in the Philippines – a list which includes Apple iTunes and Samsung’s Bada App Store. (App purchasing isn’t allowed yet on other popular smartphone ecosystems like the Nokia Ovi Store.)

Some Apps Are Still Not Available

Unfortunately, not all applications have been unlocked for our local perusal just yet. Some applications and games are still locked out from our purchasing powers – and we assume that it could be part of some licensing issues and/or adding our country to their allowed purchase list before it shows up. Browsing on the Web Marketplace can be confusing because all apps show up with their proper Peso price tags, but will not allow you to buy them for your phone. The best way is to browse the Marketplace with your phone and check the Top Paid tab for apps available in our country. We bought the Death Worm game for about PHP130 ($2.99) to check if it works and it accepted our local credit card easily. However, we couldn’t pick up the Zenonia game and was still locked out.

Despite the minor setback, its good to see that we can finally purchase apps here on our own country. This is a sign of good things to come and we’re sure that app developers will unlock their applications for our country soon. Until then, happy app purchasing!